Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

This is a weird kind of troll. I've got to admit, I don't frequent the Geek tab much. Is this kind of thing normal?

karmaceutical:taurusowner: Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

This is a weird kind of troll. I've got to admit, I don't frequent the Geek tab much. Is this kind of thing normal?

They aren't usually first...they are usually about 100 posts in, so most Farkers just scan past them.

Something tells me it's a Verizon sales rep that's annoyed with the calls to his store.

karmaceutical:taurusowner: Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

This is a weird kind of troll. I've got to admit, I don't frequent the Geek tab much. Is this kind of thing normal?

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

No. fark that. They are a common carrier; that means that they have to abide by certain rules, and one of the rules is and should be that they are not allowed to discriminate between different types of traffic. If they want to talk about how they have a right to edit the content that comes down their pipes, I am perfectly fine with them giving up their common carrier protection. Once the MAFIAA sues them out of existence for contributory copyright infringement and the entire board is arrested for distributing child pornography because of the actions of their users, I'll bet they'll wish they still had their protections.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

This is a weird kind of troll. I've got to admit, I don't frequent the Geek tab much. Is this kind of thing normal?

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

This is a weird kind of troll. I've got to admit, I don't frequent the Geek tab much. Is this kind of thing normal?

They aren't usually first...they are usually about 100 posts in, so most Farkers just scan past them.

Something tells me it's a Verizon sales rep that's annoyed with the calls to his store.

It certainly has that Politics tab troll / street hobo "Arguing with someone who isn't there" kind of vibe. I've never met a street hobo who had an opinion on wireless data providers though. Still crazy, all the same.

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

I suppose what he said is true. Unfortunately, Verizon has one other thing he forgot to mention. It's called "competition". Don't like it, go somewhere else. Which I did, not only saving money but getting higher speeds in the process.

Stuart Wolfe:I suppose what he said is true. Unfortunately, Verizon has one other thing he forgot to mention. It's called "competition". Don't like it, go somewhere else. Which I did, not only saving money but getting higher speeds in the process.

Man do I wish I had that option, I'm barely outside of a small down and there's no cable or fiber out my way apparently so Verizon DSL is pretty much my only option, and the 300kbps the connection is supposed to provide rarely runs at that rate nowadays from what I can tell.

HeartBurnKid:taurusowner: Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

No. fark that. They are a common carrier; that means that they have to abide by certain rules, and one of the rules is and should be that they are not allowed to discriminate between different types of traffic. If they want to talk about how they have a right to edit the content that comes down their pipes, I am perfectly fine with them giving up their common carrier protection. Once the MAFIAA sues them out of existence for contributory copyright infringement and the entire board is arrested for distributing child pornography because of the actions of their users, I'll bet they'll wish they still had their protections.

That's quite an interesting take that I'd never thought of. Hmmm, time to buy some popcorn and watch this play out.

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

Except when they advertise the fastest network and unlimited data, they are in breech of contract if they throttle.

It seems like my speed has been throttled lately. We don't have cable so we rely on Netflix, Amazon, etc., for our video needs. It just seems as though lately I'm only getting 480p quality when usually its at least 720p.

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

I've tried explaining to people that the Constitution is specifically limiting the power of the government over what are natural rights, but people are stupid.

I also tried to explain to them that because they are considered natural rights, everybody in the world has those rights. Again, people are stupid.

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

Your right to free speech is a natural right, but it can be limited by a corrupt power. Go to Saudi Arabia and start preaching atheism and see how far you get. The constitution is the (theoretical) guarantee that the government is limited and unable to restrict your natural rights.

Can someone tell me how I am supposed to find a better provider? It seems that the options are limited to Verizon, Time Warner Cable, ATT, Charter, and Comcast. Admittedly I am not an expert on the subject but from what I have been able to gather all of them provide mediocre service because there isn't a real threat to them in the US.

In those instances where municipalities try to set up their own provider they fight back tooth and nail and even manage to get laws passed to stop municipalities from providing such a service.

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

I've tried explaining to people that the Constitution is specifically limiting the power of the government over what are natural rights, but people are stupid.

I also tried to explain to them that because they are considered natural rights, everybody in the world has those rights. Again, people are stupid.

Seriously in the declaration(which, regardless of the derp out there, seriously informed the constitution as well as the interpretation of it years later), it was "all men" (meaning human) not "certain men born in the several states" And they knew exactly what that meant, not a single word was left un-nitpicked.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And, that's why the limitations in the constitution don't specifically apply to laws and actions which only affect citizens. "Congress Shall make NO law..." not "Congress Shall make no law except with respect to non-citizens"

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

Your right to free speech is a natural right, but it can be limited by a corrupt power. Go to Saudi Arabia and start preaching atheism and see how far you get. The constitution is the (theoretical) guarantee that the government is limited and unable to restrict your natural rights.

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

Want to call you're sister in California? Well, the phone lines between here and there are maintained by a dozen different companies....want to have to pay each of them a separate fee to get your call through?

Same with power lines......

If it's critical national infrastructure, which the internet arguably is in this day and age, guess what?

xenophon10k:SuperT: "for all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution"

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

It's a legal fiction that simplifies how collections of hundreds of individuals in common cause deal with the law. It's a can of worms that I bet justice Marshall would like to undo if he weren't dead.

fusillade762:HeartBurnKid: Stuart Wolfe: Verizon has one other thing he forgot to mention. It's called "competition".

Yeah, right.

You evidently don't live in the US. Generally, you have one choice for broadband here; two if you're lucky. Competition is nonexistent in that market.

That's certainly my experience. Where I live currently it's Comcast or nothing.

When it comes to cell service, they don't have any where I live either. I compared all the coverage maps when I upgraded to a smart phone a few months ago, and NONE of the others have service outside the immediate town centers. It's the southern tier/finger lakes region of NY, so you can have a good 1500-2000 foot elevation change in a quarter mile too. Even Verizon doesn't have 100% coverage, but I'd put it at a good 95% or better. My point of course is that if you don't have VZ, don't count on having cell service when you drive the 15 miles to see your in-laws in the next 'town' over. I used to have Sprint when I first met them, and once I left the highway, I never had service.

OscarTamerz:What kind of farktard mixes up the fifth and first amendments. Yahoo is circling thedrain more than Verizon.

A better source^ has cleared this up. They have two arguments. One is based on their claimed 1st Amendment right to free speech as stated in the article, the other claims that the 5th Amendment protection from private property being taken for public use without just compensation protects them from laws governing how they use their network.

Wouldn't this violate Verizon's status as a common carrier? If they exercise what they consider to be "editorial control" over the content running through their servers, aren't they then responsible for any information being passed through them, like, say, kiddy porn?

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the issue is that they aren't allowed to discriminate based on the type of traffic being sent to/from their users. So it would be perfectly fine to throttle someone's data, just not specific types of that data.

OgreMagi:Except when they advertise the fastest network and unlimited data, they are in breech of contract if they throttle.

They can still provided "unlimited" (albeit throttled) data; the "unlimited" wording refers to quantity, not speed. They mark it as unlimited because there is no usage cap, even if the rate at which data can be used is limited (as it is with every connection). I believe T-Mobile pulls this same crap on their cellular network; the first 2 gb or 5 gb of mobile data used in a month can be done at full network speeds, but any usage after that is heavily throttled. They don't outright block access or degrade anything except the download and upload speeds, though.

I can see why any provider would want to throttle certain content. If you have a nieghborhood with a lot of people watching high bandwidth streaming video or high bandwidth games, that slows the connection for people not watching videos or playing games. When you're getting a 0.6 on a connection that normally gets the mid 20's, that's just ridiculous.

Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf:I can see why any provider would want to throttle certain content. If you have a nieghborhood with a lot of people watching high bandwidth streaming video or high bandwidth games, that slows the connection for people not watching videos or playing games. When you're getting a 0.6 on a connection that normally gets the mid 20's, that's just ridiculous.

You can still throttle based on individual user without violating the FCC's decision that content throttling isn't legitimate. Set a minimum allocated bandwidth for each account sufficient to rapidly retrieve HTML, text, and images fairly rapidly. Allocate the rest of the pipe with whatever is currently the normal way, but with the total use limited to Total - number of active users * minimum bandwidth.

FCC's fine with that kind of throttling. They just don't approve of content throttling-- since ISPs are common carriers, this would be the equivalent of the phone company deciding to intentionally drop your calls to your sick grandmother so that their CEO can continue talking to his fifth mistress longer. Common carrier companies aren't allowed to make that kind of judgement, it's the price they pay for the various protections they get from the FCC, especially immunity from prosecution for illegal info transported over their lines.

As funny as it would be if Verizon accidentally opened themselves up to ten million charges of conspiracy and possession of child pornography from /b/ alone, I don't think the FCC is actually going to let them do something that stupid.

taurusowner:Verizon customer here with a phone that experiences data drops probably 15 times a day.

Of course they have the right to throttle speeds. It's their infrastructure, their towers, their repair technicians keeping things running, their network handling traffic. It's called "ownership". When something is yours, you get to do what you want with it. The cellular network and the associated hardware and software belong to Verizon. Not me. Not you. Not Congress. Don't like it, go build your own.

their Infrastructure, their towers, OUR spectrum, and if they want to use it, they play by our rules

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

I've tried explaining to people that the Constitution is specifically limiting the power of the government over what are natural rights, but people are stupid.

I also tried to explain to them that because they are considered natural rights, everybody in the world has those rights. Again, people are stupid.

The rights may be natural, but the fact that in the US, at least they may not be infringed or abrogated is something GUARANTEED (as opposed to GRANTED) by the Constitution

I hate this view. Your rights are not something granted to you by the Government, they are natural rights of human beings. The constitution restricts the powers of the government to infringe upon them.

That isn't right. It isn't even wrong.Rights are an artifact. They have been conceived and created by Man, for Man's use. Animals don't have or acknowledge them, and they don't even EXIST in "nature".Rights exist because men form governments that ratify and defend them - otherwise, they would not exist in the real world.You are, however, correct as to the role of the Constitution, in that it does not enumerate rights so much as it restructs the activities of government.

We are paying for internet access, not to be advertised to by partners or to be leveraged for profit. It's not a violation of free speech for a customer to get what they pay for rather than what a business feels like giving them. I think I have a better case of false imprisonment for intentionally attempting to limit my access to media and educational resources than they have of free speech.

Trolls notwithstanding, it brings up an interesting point. Seems like service providers almost view their consumers as adversaries, instead of commodities, IMHO.On the other hand, it would also seem the typical American consumer are some of the whiniest entitled shiats out there. There's no middle ground...

jso2897:Rights are an artifact. They have been conceived and created by Man, for Man's use. Animals don't have or acknowledge them, and they don't even EXIST in "nature".

Rights are natural not in the sense that they are obeyed in nature, but in the sense that they are self-evident. If I say "you should keep holy the Sabbath" or "you should not worship idols," there is nothing self- evident about that. To justify it, I have to go get a big book and point to the relevant passages and the convince you that it's right. On the other hand, if I say "people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," well, the truth of that should be obvious on its face, without reference to anything else.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that chiefly among these are...." (might be a bit wrong since I'm too lazy to google)

Jim_Callahan:Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf: I can see why any provider would want to throttle certain content. If you have a nieghborhood with a lot of people watching high bandwidth streaming video or high bandwidth games, that slows the connection for people not watching videos or playing games. When you're getting a 0.6 on a connection that normally gets the mid 20's, that's just ridiculous.

You can still throttle based on individual user without violating the FCC's decision that content throttling isn't legitimate. Set a minimum allocated bandwidth for each account sufficient to rapidly retrieve HTML, text, and images fairly rapidly. Allocate the rest of the pipe with whatever is currently the normal way, but with the total use limited to Total - number of active users * minimum bandwidth.

FCC's fine with that kind of throttling. They just don't approve of content throttling-- since ISPs are common carriers, this would be the equivalent of the phone company deciding to intentionally drop your calls to your sick grandmother so that their CEO can continue talking to his fifth mistress longer. Common carrier companies aren't allowed to make that kind of judgement, it's the price they pay for the various protections they get from the FCC, especially immunity from prosecution for illegal info transported over their lines.

As funny as it would be if Verizon accidentally opened themselves up to ten million charges of conspiracy and possession of child pornography from /b/ alone, I don't think the FCC is actually going to let them do something that stupid.

You make a good point. It does make more sense to throttle individual users than to throttle certain content.

I have also wondered if it's possible to automatically force sharing a connection equally. Say you have a 10m connection. It is being used by three users using 3m each. A fourth user comes on. If that fourth user's desires usage goes over 1m, the other three automatically get throttled enough to allow the 4th user to use what s/he wants up to 2.5m. Or if sevem more users come on, the first three get throttled to 1m. Even if it results in them getting shot because they were running across open ground shooting at The Law (wonders if anyone will get that reference)

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:jso2897: Rights are an artifact. They have been conceived and created by Man, for Man's use. Animals don't have or acknowledge them, and they don't even EXIST in "nature".

Rights are natural not in the sense that they are obeyed in nature, but in the sense that they are self-evident. If I say "you should keep holy the Sabbath" or "you should not worship idols," there is nothing self- evident about that. To justify it, I have to go get a big book and point to the relevant passages and the convince you that it's right. On the other hand, if I say "people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," well, the truth of that should be obvious on its face, without reference to anything else.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that chiefly among these are...." (might be a bit wrong since I'm too lazy to google)

Even more then self-evidence, the type of right you are talking about is testable. If you take a human, put them in a moderate climate with no hostile actors, they will normally live, do whatever the heck the want, and try to make themselves happy.